Ohio girl concedes cutting off tanker that spilled chemical last year in Illinois, killing 5
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A federal report about a tanker truck accident a year ago in central Illinois that released a toxic chemical and killed five people, includes an interview with a 17-year-old Ohio girl who admits the truck was pushed off the road as she passed it with the minivan she drove.
The tanker slowed and pulled to the right to allow the minivan to move back into the right lane and avoid a head-on collision with oncoming traffic on two-lane US 40 in Teutopolis on Sept. 29, 2023, according to the truck’s dashcam video also released late Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Oh, (expletive). Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yep, totally my fault. Wow. Holy (expletive),” the girl said as she watched the video of the ill-fated truck during an Oct. 4, 2023, interview by Illinois State Police.
The tanker truck was carrying corrosive anhydrous ammonia when it collided with a commercial vehicle parked near the highway at knifepoint. The trailer’s hitch punctured the tank, spilling about half of its 50,000-gallon load about 8:40 p.m. just west of Teutopolis, a community about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis.
Five people were killedincluding three family members who were near the road when the incident occurred. About 500 people were evacuated for hours after the accident to protect them from the dangerous plume of the chemical used by farmers to add nitrogen fertilizer to soil and in large buildings as a coolant.
The transport council said the latest findings are only a factual report and do not include analysis or conclusions, which are expected later.
The Illinois State Police conducted its own investigation, and spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said the department turned its findings over to Effingham County State’s Attorney Aaron Jones last month. A message seeking comment from Jones was left at his office on Thursday.
The girl, whose name is included in the transcript of the interview with state police because she was a minor at the time, said she was traveling with her mother and brother to visit her mother’s boyfriend in the suburbs of St. Louis, Illinois . An accident on Interstate 70 earlier that evening diverted a large amount of traffic onto U.S. 40, and she said she passed three trucks on the road west toward Teutopolis.
The girl said her passage of the tanker began in a passing zone, although a “no passing” sign appears in the video. She said once she started passing, she realized she had to speed up to avoid oncoming traffic and estimated she was going 90 miles per hour when she turned right again and narrowly slid past an oncoming car. She told investigators that her mother was upset by the close call, but she thought she had enough consent.
However, she declined the police interviewers’ offer to show the dashcam video again.
“No, that’s not necessary. It was all my fault,” the girl said. “I’ve honestly had times in the past where I just didn’t use common sense when judging distances and whether I have enough time for something.”
In an attempt to give the minivan room to get over, the truck drove onto the shoulder, lost traction on the gravel and then hit a drainage culvert, according to the truck driver, who survived. As she continued west, the girl said she soon saw emergency vehicles coming east, but did not connect with her passing the truck.
She said that before the return trip to Ohio, when her mother read news reports of the crash, she had no idea it had happened.
“Of course not,” she told investigators. “I’ve told you that three times already.”
When one of the investigators expressed her disbelief that no one in the car had seen a truck turning behind them, she doubled over.
“Nobody said, ‘Oh, the guy behind you ran off the road,'” the girl said. ‘That would have been a big problem for everyone. We would have been like, ‘Oh, (expletive), I just made something really bad happen,’ and then it would have been like we spent the whole night figuring out ‘what to do.